It’s election day here in the UK, and while I can hardly describe my feelings about voting in this election as being those of unfettered enthusiasm, I’m very aware that helping to choose my government is not only my civic responsibility, it’s also a hard-won privilege, one that many women around the world still don’t enjoy.

In all honesty, I’m far keener to vote for my favourite wine of recent months. But what wine should I choose? In terms of sheer rational analysis, I should probably pick the wine that I awarded 19 points out of 20 while judging in the recent International Wine Challenge. (I can’t tell you what it is as the organisers of the competition would have to shoot me – results are embargoed until later this month.) Truth be told, however, the bottle I most enjoyed was the Champagne I shared a few weeks ago with a friend who was celebrating her graduation as a Master of Wine earlier. There were a few of us around the table in a local restaurant (the amazing Brunswick House, of which more next week), the mood was joyous and we shared some delicious food.

My point is that if you ask anyone in the wine trade – including those whose job it is to recommend wines in magazines and newspapers, and those who spend several weeks a year judging at international wine competitions (as I’ve been doing for the past three weeks) – about the wines they’ve enjoyed recently, they’ll rarely talk in glowing terms about a wine tasted in the abstract. The wines that mean something are not those that shine out from a line up in a trade tasting or those that we award trophies in competitions. The wines that really make us all smile are those that we share with friends and family, the bottles that grace the table at a memorable meal or the ones we open to celebrate the achievements of our loved ones. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t mean that any old wine will do as long as the occasion and the company are right. All I’m saying is that when you’re trying to separate the merely good from the truly meaningful, context always counts.